Thursday, September 17, 2009

My 9:00 patient this morning called at 8:45. Said she was having "car trouble", and asked if she could reschedule to later in the morning. So we moved her to 11:15.

She shows up at 11:15, with her forehead and arms darkened, smelling strongly of smoke.

She apologized for not having had a chance to shower, but by the time she gave up on trying to put out the car herself, and the fire department left after doing so, and she found a friend to give her a ride here, she just didn't have time.

Two points:

1. I am in AWE at your devotion to me that you only moved the appointment 135 minutes, instead of to next week or month.

2. When the fire department is putting out your car, I consider that beyond "car trouble". I'd have been running in circles & screaming, and likely wouldn't have bothered to call my doctor about the appointment under the circumstances.

When I worked at a pizza place, I had a lady call up, and cancel her pizza order - because he husband was being taken to the hospital. I thanked her for wanting to save the multimillion dollar corporation 7 dollars, and then to get off the damn phone and be with her husband.

I was teaching a free seminar once and none of the students showed up, so I began calling them to remind them of the class. The second student I reached explained his reason for for not showing up, stating, "I had a heart attack a couple of days ago," and apologized profusely for missing his scheduled class. I did not have the heart to chew him out.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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